Mapping France's Most Popular Sports

Slate has used data from the French Ministère des Sports to create an interactive map of the most popular sports in France. La Carte de France des Sports is based on the number of members of sports federations throughout the country.

The map reveals some interesting geographical trends. It is well known that rugby is popular in the south-west, that skiing is popular in the Alps and that football is popular everywhere. It is useful however to have this common knowledge confirmed by the map.

The map also reveals some surprising results. Tennis for example seems to be the most popular sport in Paris and in the wealthy areas of the south-east. Golf doesn't seem to be a particularly popular past-time anywhere, except for around some links courses on the north and west coasts.

Street View of the Mary Celeste

Google in partnership with the Catlin Sea Survey has today added undersea Street View imagery of the wreck of the paddle steamer the 'Mary Celeste' to Google Maps.

I've done a little research this evening trying to put together the story of this ship wreck - and it is quite an interesting story. The Mary Celeste was a blockade runner used during the American Civil War on behalf of the Confederacy to smuggle goods in and out of America.

If you want to know more then check out this little biography of the Mary Celeste that I've put together with the help of jQuery Waypoints and the Google Maps API.

The Historical Salem Map Tour

This week seems to be all about telling stories with maps, from telling fictional stories with maps to creating scrolling narrative maps with jQuery WayPoints and Google Maps.

This week also saw the release of the new StoryMapJS library. This new library from Knight Lab helps users create their own mapped stories. Just in time for Halloween Boston.com has used the library to create an Interactive Tour of Salem Historical Sites.

The tour guides the user through many of Salem's historical locations, including the Salem Witch Museum, the Witch House, the Witch Dungeon Museum and the Witch Trials Memorial.

Pennsylvania Wineries on Google Maps

Pennsylvania Wines has used the Google Maps API to create a smart looking map of the state's wineries

The app has been designed to work on smartphones, tablets and desktop computers. The site works particularity well on mobile devices as it uses GPS positioning to recommend nearby wineries and provides other useful information about opening hours, directions and contact information.

While browsing the map you can add any of the wineries to a personal itinerary. Once you have completed your itinerary you can then get the driving directions for your own personal wine tasting tour. Which only leaves you the task of finding someone else to do the driving.    

Create Story Maps with the Google Maps API

Recently I have seen a number of story or narrative maps that use scrolling as the method to progress through the narrative. A really good example of this is Liminal Editions, a rip-roaring fictional tale with an accompanying map.

The New York Times has also recently created a couple of non-fictional maps (Riding the New Silk Road & The Russia Left Behind) that use scrolling to progress through a report and to update a map at the same time.

It is possible to use the jQuery Waypoints library to create something similar with Google Maps. Waypoints is a jQuery plugin that makes it easy to execute a function whenever you scroll to an element on a web page.

We can use the plug-in to create event handlers for functions in the Google Maps API, so that as the user scrolls to defined elements on a page we can execute a function in a Google Map. This enables us to create a story map, a sticky map that updates as the user scrolls down the page.


Have a look at this example Story Map to see the concept in action. As you scroll down this page we can move to different locations on the map, we can zoom in on locations, we could add markers to the map, we can change the map type and we can even load a Street View image.

This enables us to create story maps. To tell a story in the text and to move the map to relevant locations as the narrative progresses. We could also use the library to create journey maps. We could provide details, and even add photos and videos to the left hand column on the page and again move the map to the relevant locations when we need to.

It is also possible to use jQuery Waypoints with Google Maps Street View. Using the library with Street View allows us to create an application where we can walk up and down a street using the scroll wheel or scroll bar.


Have a look at this demo to get an idea of what is possible. For the purposes of this example I've added a visible overlay and added a hash '#' for each div element where I am loading a new Street View. If you wanted to replicate this in your own application then you would probably want to set the opacity of this overlay to zero so that the user wouldn't see it.

5 Fun Ways to Decorate your House on Street View

1. Cheetos - Project TP

With Halloween on the horizon I suspect you have already started planning whose house you are going to toilet-paper this year. You can now use Cheetos - Project TP to carry out a practice run on Google Maps Street View.

Just enter an address into the application and you can then fly over the house in the Cheetos helicopter and bombard the house with toilet paper. You then get to view the result of your toilet paper bombing on Street View and even get a link to share the results of your prank with all your friends.

Hat-tip: Google Street View World

2. Trippy

If you are bored with how your house looks on Street View then why not take a look at it through the looking glass? Trippy uses the streetview-stereographic library to create a very hallucinogenic look to Google Maps Street View.

If you like this effect there are few more examples of streetview-stereographic in action on the library's Github page.

3. Graffit Map

Graffit Map is a fun Street View application that allows you to add graffiti to Google's panoramic imagery.

The app allows you to select any location where Street View is available and draw directly on top of the Street View image. Users can select the brush size and color of their spray can and then start adding their tags to the world.

When you are happy with your graffiti you can export an image of your creation. The export consists of a jpeg, which you can then share a link to on Twitter or Facebook, or download for your own use.

4. Here Comes the Sun

If your house looks a little dull on Street View you can use Here Comes the Sun to add a little sun to the view.

Ian Butterworth noticed that the Street View imagery in London on Google Maps looks a little dull and lifeless. He therefore devised Here Comes the Sun so that Londoners can browse their streets on Street View and see what it would look like if the sun ever shone on their grey city.

The application does a little processing of Street View in the browser to adjust the brightness of the imagery. Unfortunately because of the differences in modern browsers you will probably need to use Google Chrome to view Here Comes the Sun.

On the plus side Here Comes the Sun isn't actually restricted to London and you can use the application to brighten up the Street View imagery anywhere in the world.

5. Doodle Street View

Doodle Street View lets you take a virtual tour of the Boulevard Saint-Laurent in Montréal.

The application presents you with a side-on view of one side of the Boulevard using Google Maps Street View. However these are Street View images which have been drawn on by other users of Doodle Street View.

You can scroll left and right to move down the street. At any point in your virtual stroll down the Boulevard you can actually draw on the Street View image yourself and leave your own virtual mark on the Boulevard Saint-Laurent.


If these applications seem a little too creative for your tastes then why not check out 5 Fun Ways to Destroy Your House on Street View.

Telling Stories with Maps

The Northwestern University's Knight Lab has released a new tool, called StoryMapsJS, to help users create mapped stories.

Perhaps the best way to understand a StoryMapJS created map is to look at the provided example. The StoryMapJS site includes a demo map that explores the mean center of the US population from 1790 to the present day. The map presents a series of map markers each of which are associated with an explanatory slide, which is displayed under the map.

Users of the map can progress through the slides chronologically by clicking on forward or back buttons or can load a slide by clicking on any of the map markers. StoryMapsJS therefore appears to be a good creation tool to use for maps that have a chronological progression, for example for mapping a journey, trip or historical development.

StoryMapJS is currently in an early Alpha release. Currently you need to download the framework from GitHub. Eventually however you should be able to just load the library and append the location data via a JSON file.

Introducing Google Maps Engine Pro

Google has today released a new mapping application as part of its Maps Engine series of map creation tools.

Google Maps Engine Pro, appears to be designed to make it as easy as possible for businesses to create their own Google Maps. Comparing the specifications of Google Maps Engine to Maps Engine Pro it appears that the 'Pro' version has slightly less functionality but a higher geocoding rate limit. There are also differences in how you pay for each product. Maps Engine Pro is charged by licence whereas Maps Engine is based on the number of map views.

The good news for potential customers is that you can now also get a free introductory account to Google Maps Engine. The introductory account gives you free access to the full Maps Engine platform but limits the number of map queries per day.

There is more good news as well for users of any of the Google Maps Engine products. A new mobile app allows you to now view your maps created with Google Maps Engine on your Android phone.

NSW Fires Mapped

With fires in New South Wales, Australia still raging a state of emergency has now been declared. Google Crisis Response has released a NSW Bushfires Map.

The map shows the location of NSW fires. The fire map markers indicate whether an emergency warning, a watch and act or an advice warning has been issued in response. The map also visualizes burned areas via black polygons.


The Australian Bushfire Map gathers and displays data from multiple public agencies to give a composite view of fire incidents currently affecting Australia.

The map includes a number of options to refine the fire data displayed on the map. Of particular use is the ability to view today's hotspots based on satellite thermal detection.

Citizen Mapping in New York

The New York Public Library has been blazing a trail in the use of citizen cartography through its wonderful Map Warper tool. The tool utilizes the power of the 'crowd' to help digitize the libraries wonderful collection of historical maps.

Using the tool anyone can help the Library align their historical maps on top of a modern OpenStreetMap of New York. Now that the library has digitized a large number of their maps they need help in identifying building footprints on the maps.

The New York Library's new Building Inspector is another 'citizen science' tool that allows anyone to help the library identify building footprints on the library's maps. The library has developed a Map Vectorizer application which automatically detects building footprints and converts them to machine-readable shape files.

The Map Vectorizer can automatically identify building footprints in an entire borough in a matter of hours. However the data footprints are not always completely accurate. That's where the Building Inspector comes in as it allows users to determine if a building footprint is accurate or whether it needs to be redrawn.